Georges Danton was one of the foremost radical leaders during the French Revolution. Favoring the system of a republic for the future of France, Danton thought violence a necessary tool for achieving radical changes. However, as the revolution intensified during the bloody Reign of Terror, he moderated his positiofile://localhost/Users/keeyoungsuh/Desktop/Danton.jpgn. As a result, he himself was executed at the guillotine by the paranoid Robespierre.

Danton was born in a small village in the Champagne region of France in 1759. When he was 21, he went to Paris in order to study law. There, he became familiar with the works of men such as Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Denis Diderot. Obtaining his degree in 1784, Danton married Antoinette Charpentier and set up his own law practice. In 1787, Danton found himself a position as advocate to the royal councils.

Around the time that the Bastille fell, in 1789, Danton joined the civil guard. Soon after, he earned himself a spot on the provisional city government in Paris in 1790. There, Danton cultivated a reputation as a friend of the people as he delivered speeches at two political clubs, which included the Jacobin Club.

As the revolution progressed, so did Danton's revolutionary ideals evolve. In the June of 1792, he delivered a speech which bashed Marquis de Lafayette, a general that was close to the king. In August of the same year, he helped to lead a coup that overthrew the Paris Commune and replaced it with a more radical city government. The following day, a crowd seized control of the palace and handed over the royal family to revolutionary authorities; this step effectively ended French monarchy for a time. Seeing his success, the Girondins turned to Danton as a man with influence. With their backing, he was elected minister of justice in the French Legislative Assembly.

In the following months, Danton enforced his position of authority. In 1792, following the fall of Verdun, Danton issued a speech that called for the death of anyone who refused to defend France in her time of peril. Later that day, mobs stormed Parisian prisons and killed over 1,400 prisoners that were suspected of counter-revolutionary sympathies.

Shortly thereafter, Danton earned a seat in the National Convention. However, having pocketed much money for himself from government expenditures, Danton lost favor with the Girondins and broke from them in the March of 1793. On April 7, 1793, Danton was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. However, rather than kill the Girondins, he sought their expulsion from the National Convention; this put him at odds with another radical leader, Robespierre, who sought to kill anyone who wanted even compromise with the enemies of the revolution. When the Committee's mandate expired in July, Robespierre was elected rather than Danton. Under Danton, a slew of guillotine executions began in earnest.

In response, Danton created the moderate Indulgents. In 1794, Danton rallied the indulgents in a campaign against the Reign of Terror. As a result, Robespierre ordered the arrest and execution of Danton.